Page:Cricket (Steel, Lyttelton).djvu/299

Rh Law contended that his eleven in 1874 made no mistake in the inter-University match, whereas the 1875 eleven did. But the Cambridge batting in 1874 was fatuous to a degree, and the Oxford eleven had nothing to stop, whereas Cambridge in 1875 batted very well and kept their opponents hard at it. We are willing to give equal credit to each, and to enshrine the names of Law, Game, Ridley, J. B. Jones, and Royle in the temple of fame.

It is not easy to gauge the merits of the fieldsmen of forty years ago. Some of them have made their names live: Mr. T. A. Anson as wicket-keeper, Mr. R. T. King at point, and the famous W. Pickering at cover-point, for instance. But, though they had rougher ground to field on, still the scoring was nothing like so large, matches were not nearly so numerous, and the wear and tear far from being so great. The first thing that strikes one on reading over old scores and comparing them with those of the present day, is the enormous number of extras that were then given. Bowlers were, no doubt, faster, but they bowled many more wides. Taking one year at random, 1880, we find that for the whole season Yorkshire in all matches only bowled eight wides, five of which were delivered by the famous Tom Emmett, who is, no doubt, a slightly erratic bowler. In the days of Redgate and Mynn the wides were numerous, so were the no-balls, and frequently the extras contributed more to the total than any one batsman. If the bowling was fast and erratic, one cannot wonder that byes became numerous, especially when the rough ground is also considered. In the University match of 1841 Oxford gave Cambridge 56 extras out of a combined total of 223—a very large average. In 1887 Cambridge only gave Oxford 14 extras in a combined total of 461, and Oxford lost but three wickets in the second innings. In the same year Oxford gave Cambridge only 20 extras in a grand total of 459. Though bowling is generally slower now than forty years ago, still in former days they used to have long-stops to bowling that even amateur wicket-keepers would now